


Arachnae

by rowan_reign



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies, Comics compliant characterization, Deaf Character, Implied/Referenced Past Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Past Torture, Multi, Peter Parker Doesn’t Kill People, Red Rooms are Messed Up, Torture, Wade is Not Not Deadpool, bad choices, spies are cool
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 09:52:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18118403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowan_reign/pseuds/rowan_reign
Summary: Outside of government intelligence agencies, two organizations have risen to fill the demand for private, third-party intelligence operations. Both have highly trained covert operatives at their disposal, and both are constantly trying to out-maneuver one another.On one side: Wade Wilson and Clint Barton, the cleanup crew for S.H.I.E.L.D. missions that don’t necessarily need to be done right, but do need to be done thoroughly.On the other: Peter Parker and Natasha Romanov, the Huntsman and Black Widow, the Arachnae Organization’s most venomous agents.And between them: a web of secrets, lies, and hidden truths that might just unravel them all.





	Arachnae

The hall to the debriefing room was cold and silent, save for the tapping of Peter’s sensible dress shoes against the linoleum. Not expensive stuff, never in these places. Around him, the lighting was a flat blue-white, the hum of the fluorescent bulbs the closest thing this place had to a hint of life. No windows, no daylight. The walls were the same grey-beige of a thousand other offices in a thousand other buildings just like this one all around the globe. It could be anywhere, at any time, and that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Anonymity was key, and in a way, the uniform neo-liberal capitalist landscape provided that better than any armored bunker ever could. No one ever suspected another office building, or the blandly dressed men and women who clicked across the lobby every day with blank expressions on their faces. Sure, once you got up the elevator there were fingerprint scanners and voice recognition and heat sensors that made sure nobody went where they weren’t supposed to, but on the outside, this was just one more cubicle-ridden hellhole in a city full of identical copies of it. 

Except this was the only hallway that ended in a particular room with two chairs and one large, imposing executive desk. On that desk would be one neatly organized file that would, in simple sans-serif font, direct the course of Peter’s life.

It didn’t bother him anymore. The only real part of this corporate front were the checks that cleared into his bank account every month in its name, automatically paying his rent and bills and leaving him enough to get by on, while a similar check dropped with even less aplomb into a private savings account that his Aunt May had the card to. Whatever was at the end of this mediocre hall, tucked into that Office Depot file, was what was going to pay for Aunt May’s charming little apartment in the nice part of Manhattan and takeout from her favorite Thai place twice a week and every other need she could possibly come up with. She’d Skype him on Saturdays and beam with a joy he hadn’t seen since he was in elementary school, and that smile meant that whatever was in that file didn’t bother him. 

Children love to play at being spies with plastic guns and pretend gadget watches that can do anything and everything; adults, though less outwardly enthusiastic, love the idea more. To slip off the mild-mannered outer identity like a cheap suit and enter a world of mystery and intrigue, all chilled martini glasses and raucous sex and expensive car chases in exotic locales. Not that Peter hadn’t been to some exotic locales over the past few years, or had some raucous sex. But that was less than a quarter of the job—and he’d learned early on that he really hated martinis, actually. Most of what his job entailed was walking around in corridors like these, and shaking people’s hands, and typing up reports, and running his gymnastics routine, and watching excessively boring, evil people do excessively boring, though outwardly less evil things on social media. Spying, contrary to popular belief, was more about gathering information and brokering it to the appropriate parties than it was about getting shot at in casinos or laughed at by cat-stroking bad guys. It was about patience, and strategy, and knowing your target better than they know themselves.

Hence why he didn’t even need to see the contents of the file to have a good idea what was about to be asked of him. He’d spent the past three weeks trailing the movements of a Serbian crime syndicate that traded in everything from guns to girls, all boiled down to a series of numbers on spreadsheets and photos of the organization’s leader at cocktail parties, hanging out of sports cars on his Instagram, and talking to a number of shady-looking men. That man had done something worse than trafficking or gun-running, at least in terms of his personal health and wellbeing: he’d gotten his hands on some information that he wasn’t supposed to have. Which Peter and another Spider agent were going to retrieve. Probably without killing him, though it wasn’t likely that the poor little mob boss would survive long after it got out he’d lost this tidbit of knowledge, and to whom. 

The doorway at the end of the hall wasn’t even particularly dramatic. Nothing but thin, cheap wood with a brass handle that stuck slightly as Peter turned it, and hinges that rattled a little when it swung open. The woman in the chair beside the empty one, the one intended for him, only turned her eyes to him in greeting and offered the slightest, briefest curve of her lips—chapped, he noticed, she must have just gotten back from the Ukraine. Then the movement was gone, so quickly it would have been a facial tic on anyone else, but Peter knew that in this room it was a display of the utmost warmth and affection from mentor to mentee. 

Her nails were scarlet now, rounded at the tips, and even without makeup, wrapped in an ill-fitting wool three-piece, she was one of the most stunning women he’d ever seen. It wasn’t even an amorous thought, just a statement of fact the way one would affirm that the sky is blue and water is wet. Natasha had been breathtaking from the first moment Peter laid eyes on her, and it was from that same moment he knew he’d never want her. That was probably why they made such excellent partners. With a nod, he seated himself next to her and folded his hands in his lap, staring across the empty desk and waiting.

They said nothing to each other. 

A minute passed, and then the projected figure of a man filled the space above the desk, as though his ghost had appeared partway through it. The image was crisp, realistic, without the grain and fade most hologram tech would have—but then, they’ve always had the best guys down in IT. It was one department the organization would bother to spend money on, which Peter approved of. The hologram’s hair was perfectly dove-grey and combed neatly against his head, and though age had laid a ruddy cast on his skin and carved hollows in his cheeks, his eyes weren’t the rheumy, watery blue of the average grandfather. Yet they weren’t hard, either, not steely and piercing; this man never needed to be steel. Instead, they were the flat blue of a man who knew that with intelligence, logic, and an inexorable will, he could spin the gears of the world by hand if he wanted to. The image floating before them was Vasily Petrov, and he was their boss. 

“Huntsman, Black Widow. I take it you’ve familiarised yourself with the contents of the brief already.” Not a question, and they didn’t bother to answer in the affirmative. He wasn’t waiting for it anyhow. “Your mission is simple. Your target is this man—“ a still photograph hovered over the boss’ image, and both Peter and Natasha studied it dispassionately. It was a face they were already familiar with, as with the name attached; Natasha had clearly been one of those receiving the reports Peter had typed up on the Serbian’s activities. “Andrej Stojanovic. He is in Vienna to meet with a member of the Swedish mafia, to whom he is selling information. It is believed that his contact has ties to a prominent human trafficking ring, but you will not engage with him. Acquire the thumb-drive Stojanovic carries, through the most suitable means.” 

Images flashed through Peter’s mind—of himself stripping in front of Stojanovic’s hungry gaze, of Stojanovic tied to a chair with broken knees and a bloody face, of simply slipping a hand into the pocket of his coat and trading the tiny piece of metal for an identical one. Beside him, the Black Widow was running through the same scenarios, her grey eyes cold as she considered which approach would be the most effective. Peter leaned back in his chair slightly, giving the impression of comfort without actually having it, not bold enough to cross one ankle over his knee, but not rookie enough to sit ramrod straight. 

The disembodied bust of their boss returned to the front of the hologram, and the agents snapped out of their thoughts in unison. “You will be checked into the Hotel Leitner in Vienna, posing as a pair of amateur ballroom dance partners in the city for a competition. Stojanovic will be in room 287; Widow, you will be on the same floor in 291, Huntsman, you’re in 412.” Mentally, Peter added his rappelling equipment to the list of requisitions from the armory, and quickly hid the excitement that stirred in his gut at the thought. His talent with the ropes was one of the reasons they picked him in the first place, the way he could hold silent and still as he dropped through space, the athletics of his teenage years honed to a new and dangerous purpose. Appropriate, really. Named after a spider, and always dropping in from a silken thread to places he ought not be. 

“You have twelve hours. Requisition any equipment you think will be necessary, rest, and be prepared to go at eight hundred hours tomorrow morning. There will be a car outside the usual drop-point with your ‘luggage’ and flight information. Character briefs will be in the glove compartment. Be aware that the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agency has been tracking Stojanovic too, and their agents may be in the field. They are not to interrupt the mission, deal with them as you see fit. And Widow—“ the boss here turned from his blank stare over both of their heads to address her directly, the hairs on Peter’s arms raising as the two made eye contact. Even with the separation of the hologram, it felt as though the temperature in the room dropped by several sudden degrees. “He may have connections to a Red Room. He may attempt to use old code-phrases against you. I trust that these will not be an issue, but prepare yourself nonetheless.” Then Petrov looked away again, and only Natasha’s white-knuckled grip on the grey plush of the chair gave a hint of how dearly she wanted to pull a trigger in that minute.

“Have a good hunt, Spiders.” Then Petrov was gone, and the two of them spent only ten more seconds in silence before Peter reached forward, took the file off the table, and followed Natasha out of the room.

 

By nine thirty the next morning, Peter and Natasha were sitting in the waiting area beside their gate, luggage checked and fake passports examined not-too-thoroughly by a bored TSA agent. It would’ve been nice to get into the premiere lounge and sip fresh-squeezed orange juice, but that wasn’t part of their character—they were ballroom dance hobbyists, not Mr. and Mrs. Smith. If anyone asked, Peter’s name was Jeffrey and he was from Des Moines, working full time as a receptionist in a high-end dental clinic and using his vacation days to attend this dance competition. Natasha was named Kate, had been born and raised someplace in southern California, wrote a fashion and lifestyle blog, and had inherited from her parents. They’d been dancing together for three years, after meeting at a regional competition in L.A., and even had cellphones full of fabricated text conversations, Facebook messages, and photoshopped pictures of them at various restaurants and dance recitals. They looked real, and not particularly exciting to anyone outside of their small, glass-bowl world. 

Peter used the opportunity to practice the flat tones of his Midwestern accent as he bought candy-bars, popcorn, and overpriced water at the kiosk in the airport, and the bored gaze of the salesgirl sliding over and past him was the biggest compliment he could have been given. Despite himself, Peter found that he loved airports—the people coming from far away and going far away, the occasional roar of a jet engine, even the shitty, expensive food. Airports meant travel, change, and even though they were filled with annoying lines and inconvenient security measures, he couldn’t help but feel a thrum of excitement every time he peered out the wall of glass and watched planes touch the tarmac. 

Still, that didn’t stop him from taking the piss whenever he could. Back at the gate he flopped down onto a seat next to Natasha, and automatically groaned while squirming theatrically in an attempt to get comfortable. “Jesus—do you think they have to hire special architects to make these chairs as uncomfortable as humanly possible? Like, is that a thing? Architects who specialize in furniture that looks like it was designed by a Danish minimalist with a Jetsons fetish, and feels like a chiropractor’s wet dream?” Natasha laughed, expertly stealing a candy bar from the stash on his lap despite his pretend protests. 

“I’m sure they do. In fact, I bet they’re in cahoots with the Chiropractor Underground to net a million patients a year by making chairs with no lumbar support. Just wait until we’re on the plane, and your knees are married to your sternum,” she shot back, and Peter’s answering grin was completely genuine. Despite the fact that they were acting, he always had the sense that character missions were the one time Natasha felt comfortable enough to drop her super-tough spy act. She was most herself when pretending to be someone else.

“Dude, I can’t wait to get to Vienna. I hear the hot chocolate there is amazing—didn’t they invent it there?” Peter said, flicking popcorn into his mouth and jiggling one denim-clad leg. Natasha curled into the rocky seats, her eyes warm and soft, and they’ve been best friends for years. Even Peter would believe it. 

“I don’t know. We should find out. Maybe there’s a chocolate tour,” she suggested, clearly baiting his enthusiasm.

Peter practically bounced out of his seat, fake excitement bleeding into the real. “Yes. _Yes!_ Let’s win this thing and go on a chocolate tour of Vienna and see Mozart’s house!” 

“That’s in Salzburg, not Vienna,” but before his zeal dimmed, she gave him a quick smile. “But we can rent a car, if we win.”

 

Their flight into London, where they’d have an hour’s layover before going on to Austria, was utterly uneventful other than Peter finally getting to see Oceans Eleven, which he promptly followed up with Oceans Eight, and a discreet sleeping pill that knocked him well out until they landed. It wouldn’t do to be jet-lagged in the middle of a mission. When the jolt of the wheels on the tarmac woke him, his eyes automatically searched for Natasha and found her two rows ahead, sandwiched in a middle seat but managing to chat cheerfully with the middle-aged woman next to her, who patted her hand before they stood up to get their bags. 

“Tell me you’re not secretly in love with me and confessing it to strangers on planes,” he murmured sleepily as she stepped out into the aisle in front of him, and took her backpack down from the overhead compartment. 

That got him a raised eyebrow and a quiet scoff as she shouldered her bag. “Not likely. She was just telling me that I’m still young, and just because Jason was a shithead who dumped me for another girl, that doesn’t mean I won’t find The One out there somewhere.” 

Peter nodded at the bit of character work Natasha had done, raking a hand through his hair before getting his own bag down and shuffling off the plane. 

Heathrow was even bigger than Boston-Logan had been, which they were flown out of in case flights at JFK were being watched too closely. But now they blended perfectly with the crowd of zombified passengers moving through international customs, and the only hint of what they were about to do was when the gate agent looked at Peter with a red-lipsticked smile plastered on her face and chirped that his bags were being handled very delicately on the transfer to the next plane. He thanked her and nodded before going off to get his passport stamped, hoping they didn’t get his rappelling equipment tangled while tossing his luggage around. Or shake up Natasha’s gun cleaning kit. She hated it when her oils got mixed up. 

The Vienna airport was tiny by comparison, and just as Peter was approaching Natasha with two coffees in hand, she froze. Her eyes scanned something behind him, and he knew better than to react in any other way than sauntering up and taking a sip of his macchiato. “Hey Katie, what’s up? Forget something on the plane?”

Natasha’s shoulders barely moved with her breath for a long moment, before her eyes fluttered, and she blinked with faux bleariness. “No—no. I’m good. I just remembered I totally did pack the necklace that goes with my blue dress, but that freaked me out for a second.” She took her coffee out of his hand and hiked her backpack up farther before heading towards the exit and their waiting car. Whatever she’d seen, it wasn’t a threat—at least, not for now. So Peter shrugged, and followed her. “Cool. The last thing we need is a wardrobe malfunction.”

Even still, Peter turned halfway when they were almost at the exit, his own eyes picking through the crowd, catching a glimpse of a man in a red-and-black hoodie before he turned away and was hidden by other faces. Whatever. If Natasha didn’t think it was a threat, then he would trust her. Just this once.

 

Their arrival at the hotel was a blur of kowtowing bellhops and simpering concierge, and it was only through the graces of his advanced tactical training that Peter managed to seize his suitcase and get onto the elevator without being swarmed. It was a too-nice kind of hotel, the scuffed sneakers feeling out of place against the plush carpeting, but Peter remembered that this was how Jeffrey was meant to feel too, and swallowed his internal awkwardness.

By the time he reached his room, all he wanted to do was flop down on the bed and nap for a few hours, possibly a few days, but that wasn’t in the equation. Instead, he stripped off his clothing and took a perfunctory shower, scrubbing the grime of old sweat and air travel off his skin, then stepped out wrapped in one of the hotel’s luxurious towels to inspect his quarters. There was no need to upturn lampshades or slice at the wallpaper to check for bugs; a few taps on his cellphone and the application of his fingerprint had it searching for all outgoing frequencies and transmitting devices, then beeping when it cleared the room. 

Kneeling on the floor beside the bed, Peter snapped open his suitcase and carefully removed the smaller case that carried his weapons. This had long been a point of contention between himself and Petrov—from the very first day he’d joined, he had made it clear that there was a single condition on his undying loyalty and obedience, beyond the protection of Aunt May: he refused to kill. Petrov had looked like he wanted to laugh in his face, or perhaps just throw Peter out on the street after a convenient cocktail of memory-wiping drugs, but Natasha had stood behind him. Both literally and metaphorically. She had appeared from the shadows just behind his shoulder and told Petrov that if Peter didn’t want to kill, then he didn’t have to, and she wasn’t going to hear otherwise. Peter had thanked her for her support, after his heart stopped feeling like it wanted to make a quick exit from his mouth.

Thus, the case was a compromise. A knife holster was strapped onto his bare thigh, accessible through a clever fold of fabric in his trouser pocket, and he had to admit the weight reassured him. His underwear and socks went on next, and then he stood at the hotel’s folding ironing board and pressed his nice, off-white shirt until the creases were sharp as knives. Nothing special about it, though. Just a decent shirt from a fairly upmarket brand, in his size but not tailored to fit. Something Jeffrey would wear on a date, or dinner at a fancy hotel restaurant with a beautiful woman. Jeffrey had slightly more taste than the average guy; he was a bisexual ballroom dancer, after all. It was Peter’s belt that held the miniature camera in the buckle, and the trousers that had the lockpick kit sewn conveniently into the waistband at the front and a razor at the back, perfect for getting out of zip ties and ropes. One of the cards in his wallet also had a sharp edge and measurement demarcations, and his retractable key fob doubled as both a discrete restraint and a small taser. 

This wasn’t even the kit for expected danger. This was dinner. 

A grey blazer and brown loafers that matched his belt completed the look, along with a pair of thick-rimmed glasses because hey, why not? They looked snazzy. Sizing himself up in the mirror, he couldn’t quite stamp out the swell of confidence that the suit brought him. Sure, Jeffrey’s hair was darker than Peter’s, and his eyebrows had been reshaped slightly by tweezers, but they’d always taken a less-is-more approach to character roles. Even the best prosthetics had their limits, and a very drunk Natasha had once told him how she’d had to cover for a fellow agent whose false nose had fallen into the soup course of a private dinner with the Israeli Prime Minister. At least she’d slipped the waiter a generous tip while everyone was rolling around on the floor amidst the lobster appetizer. The long and the short of all this was that Jeffrey and Peter could probably be taken as cousins, if one were to ever get pictures of them side-by-side. Yet no one would ever bother, because Jeffrey was a mild-mannered, unassuming citizen, floating in the teeming mass of a crowded city, living an unobtrusive and unremarkable life.

And Peter Parker was dead.

Peter smiled to himself, clicking the lid to his suitcase closed and sealing the biometric lock before sliding it under his bed. In his pocket, his thumb rubbed over the pointed limbs of the stylized spider engraved on the handle of his knife, and he shut the door on the darkened bedroom before heading off to dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, Peter looks pretty good for a dead guy, huh?
> 
> Hi Marvel fandom! This is my first time writing a longer work for Marvel, so I hope I did a passable job! There will be some POV switching in this fic, and the next chapter will be from Clint’s perspective! I actually have a plot for this one, so I’m expecting at least four or five chapters, but updates may be very slow as I do occasionally have to be a student and do student things. But I really hope you all like it!


End file.
